Detailed notes for revision regarding the (Global Development and Connections) Topic 8: Migration, Identity and Sovereignty, A level geography course.
Overview: Globalisation involves movements of capital, goods and people. Tensions can result between the logic of globalisation, with its growing...
14.1 The impact of globalisation on international migration:
Economic systems and labour flows
Globalisation has led to a rise in migration, both on an internal and international scale.
- Modern transport and networks enable truly global labour flows to operate.
National and international migration patterns
Changes in the patterns of demand for labour at the national scale are often linked with
globalisation.
- Core-periphery systems develop and strengthen over time on account of positive
feedback effects.
- Uneven economic growth may be linked originally to a natural advantage that one
‘core’ region enjoys over others.
- Over time, any initial imbalances become exaggerated due to the perpetual outflow
of migrants, resources and investment from peripheral regions towards the core.
(backwash effects)
Global systems encourage rural – urban migration within countries in various ways:
- Mechanized agriculture, land grabs and agribusiness.
- Employment pull factors found in urban areas in developing and emerging
economies, link to global supply chain growth in export processing zones (EPZs).
Variations in migrant population sizes
Between three and four per cent of the world’s population lives outside the country of birth.
- Important changes have taken place in the pattern of international migration in
recent years, international migration was directed mainly towards developed world
destinations.
- Although developing world countries have also begun to function as major global
hubs for immigration.
Individual nations vary enormously in terms of the number or proportion of their population
that is comprised of migrants.
- Differences in the level of political engagement with the global economy is one
major reason for this. (governments may need to adopt liberal immigration)
Changes in the global pattern of migration
The main factor explaining uneven distribution of economic opportunity within global
systems. Triggered by economic inequality, migration may also influence.
- This is because the ‘brain drain’ of talent away from source countries represents an
economic loss that may only be partially offset by the receipt of remittances.
,14.2 The complex causes of migration
Economic, social and political reasons for movement
In general, migrants are not the poorest citizens of the states they leave behind. This is
because money is needed to make an international journey.
- The world’s poorest people simply do not have access to this capital.
In addition to labour flows, other important reasons for migration include:
1. Family: spouses and children may follow workers overseas. In time, extended family
members may move too as part of a process called diaspora growth.
a. Diaspora: a disperse group of people with a shared cultural background who
have spread internationally from their original homeland.
2. Conflict: …
The economic rationale for permitting free movement of people.
The core-periphery model of economic development depends on a process called
backwash. Migrant labour flows become focused on core regions at varying geographical
scales.
Schengen agreement – An international agreement that aims to make it easier for people to
move freely within the EU.
- The logic of the agreement is rooted in an economic theory that views human beings
as an economic resource that businesses need to make use of.
- People should therefore be allowed to move to where work is available. Migration is
viewed as an efficient way of making sure that the economic output of a territory is
optimized.
In order to aid this process, most states allow workers to migrate freely from peripheral
to core regions. While it may appear that this is causing spatial disparities to increase at
first, some economists argue that the exact opposite is true and that the core –
periphery system is in everyone’s interest.
- Backwash effects are balanced out by spread effects, also known as the trickle,
down.
, Trickle-down: The positive impacts on the peripheral region of wealth creation in core
regions. These may include investment, regional aid and grants, and the diffusion of
innovations, technology and infrastructure from the core to the periphery.
14.3 Differing perspectives on the consequences of migration
Migration has accelerated by economic development, shrinking world technologies and
political interconnectedness.
- Migration is a major management challenge for most governments, especially those
in development countries towards which large flows are directed.
Migration changes the cultural and ethnic composition of states.
History shows that levels of diversity often lessen over very long time periods, however.
Almost 80 per cent of people in England today identity themselves as being ‘white English’.
Yet this community was originally far from culturally homogenous. In the past, varied ethnic
communities lived in different parts of England.
- Over time, these diverse migrant groups combined in a cultural ‘melting pot’ that
gave rise to the English language as it is spoken today. Aspects of the same process
are being repeated today.
Differing perspectives and viewpoints in the migration debate
Migration creates political tensions due to differing perceptions of, and viewpoints on, the
cultural changes it brings.
- Migration restrictions have subsequently been introduced and the coveted Us Green
Card has become harder to gain.
Complex patterns of global migration
Migration is a political and personal process.
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